What’s RescueTime?

RescueTime is a time management &amp; Productivity software firm founded in 2008. The RescueTime app runs in the background of your devices monitoring, measuring and automatically categorizing your own activity.

RescueTime is a free program with a premium upgrade That enables attributes and more reporting like offline moment input. It offers a reporting dashboard with all your data diced, chopped and sorted into graphs that are useful to assist you manage your time.

The program is based on Peter Drucker’s (the famous Management consultant) maxim that”what gets measured, gets managed.”

RescueTime takes time’s monitoring So that you actually track your own time so that and makes it automatic and painless — you may be conscious of time usage.

That said, there are dozens and dozens of Productivity &amp; time management programs online. What are the pros &amp; cons of RescueTime? Here’s what I have noticed over the years.

Disclosure — I receive referral fees Mentioned on this website. Any info and/or opinions are based on my experience as consultant to a client or a paying customer. Rescuetime Vs Timedoctor

Rescuing Your Period

RescumeTime is a productivity tool in the to reiterate Sense that it helps you improve your time-management abilities. It collects data about the programs and websites you use, then creates reports based on that info.

You set up a and create an account to get started Desktop app on your personal computer (s) and optionally a cell program on Android apparatus ) There is no iOS program because the operating system prevents RescueTime from collecting the data it needs to carry out its purpose. Those programs quietly and invisibly track which programs you use and which sites you visit, in addition to the quantity of time you spend on them.

The tough nut to crack is the Way to make sense of all that information. To get the best results, you must customize your account from the RescueTime site and tell the program more about what you believe productive versus unproductive activity. The further you fine-tune it to your particular conditions, the greater your results. For example, somebody who operates in the finances industry might classify reading financial news on sites including MarketWatch and FT.com as a productivity task, whereas for me, that is an unproductive use of time.

You can categorize site and each program on a 5-point Scale of quite productive, effective, impartial, unproductive, and very unproductive. You could even categorize action into work categorizes. By way of instance, I list Google Docs as quite productive, and I categorized it as Writing, and it is a subcategory of Layout and Composition. Looking at Redfin.com is very distracting when I am trying to work, and I have categorized it .

In the desktop app, there is an easy set of controls That lets you pause RescueTime for 15 minutes, one hour, or until tomorrow, giving you easy access to switching the app off for breaks or days when you wrap up early.

Privacy

When confronted with RescueTime’s proposition–We’ll monitor Everything you do and give you insights about your customs! –some individuals may, justifiably, worry about their privacy and the safety of information in their hardware. Should you use sensitive info online or store sensitive information in your computers and mobile devices, you’ll want to read RescueTime’s privacy and security statements carefully.

For everyone else, RescueTime’s privacy policy Includes a summary on top, only a few condensed lines which are worth reading.

If your concerns are somewhat more relaxed and You Just Don’t Want RescueTime monitoring you on the weekend, you’ve got control over the times and days the app monitors your behaviour. You can easily set it to only watch your activity from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, or whatever program suits you.

Reports

I have used RescueTime for years, and I do not check my Productivity reports. I love to allow the service run in the background so that when I really do want to find a better image of how I have been spending my own time, a fantastic quantity of information is awaiting me.

When I do go through the reports, however, they’re Magnificent. I really like the variety, providing you get multiple ways of knowing your productivity and habits, from bar charts and pie charts that show lump sums of action, to line items of software you used.

One simple but powerful piece of information RescueTime Supplies is an investigation of when during the daytime you are inclined to be the most successful. I wasn’t surprised to see that my brain peaks in the morning and slacks off after 2:00 p.m., as that fits pretty well with everything I know about my habits. If you’ve never studied your productivity, however, that may be a useful revelation for you, one which might help you schedule your days more productively.

The more time you use RescueTime Premium, the more useful the Data becomesbecause you may view your data by day, week, month, or year. And as you might expect, you can toggle which times and days RescueTime records your activity so that it turns off automatically on weekends, for instance. Rescuetime Vs Timedoctor

Additional Capabilities

Much of the value you get from RescueTime comes in what You make of the data and how you use that information to influence your behavior. Changing behavior is hard, but getting rich insights does not have to be.

One of the ways RescueTime makes it Simple to understand how To interpret all of the data that it collects is using a Productivity Pulse score. This daily evaluation, shown as a percentage, comes from calculating the percentage of time spent on very productive, productive, impartial, unproductive, and incredibly wasteful jobs. To be clear, nobody is advocating you aim for a 100 percent Productivity Pulse score.

A RescueTime blog post explaining the productivity Score notes that the score is 67 percent, and the in-house average is 79 percent. The majority of people need to do some job that is not considered”very productive” during daily. The whole point of using RescueTime will be to help you figure out how to concentrate on productive and very productive tasks when you need to and perhaps save less productive tasks for times when your ability to focus has been waning anyway.

Less productive tasks are not exactly the same thing as distractions. RescueTime has a simple and smart feature for curbing unwanted behaviour, such as getting sucked into distracting sites . A feature called FocusTime, when enabled, blocks your ability to access. It takes a little setup and personalization, but it’s quite powerful, after it’s ready to deploy. As an example, let us say you want to finish a report, and to make progress on it, you need to focus hardcore for the next 30 minutes. Switch on FocusTime, and it can block you from looking at email, posting on Twitter, checking sports scores, or whatever other websites and activities you deem deflecting.

The RescueTime mobile app has Mechanically silence your phone you enable FocusTime. Likewise, you may set up other automation with the help of third party providers IFTTTFree at iTunes Store and Zapier to obstruct or silence additional distractions. By way of example, you may create a rule with IFTTT (it stands for”if this, then that”) that says,”If I empower FocusTime, then mechanically set my Slack standing to busy.”

RescueTime also gives you the option to log time computer Idle time. Any time RescueTime finds that the computer was idle for many minutes at a row, so it pops up a dialog asking if you were in a meeting, on the telephone, taking rest, and so on, and permits you to categorize the idle time accordingly.

Advantages of RescueTime

Here’s some of the advantages of utilizing RescueTime Over solutions. Rescuetime Vs Timedoctor

Feature Set

At its heart, RescueTime does something — track time. It is not special if you look at it that way. Technically, you could do that using a spreadsheet or any of those dozens of programs on the internet.

However, RescueTime’s attribute set The way that it monitors time and exactly what it does with all the information (aka, one you’ll actually use).

Since RescueTime’s monitoring feature simplifies that Problem, you will have data that’s complete, useful & appropriate.

RescueTime’s other features focus on producing their Core feature. Like time-tracking &amp; charging for 15, they don’t attempt to add on features that are complementary. They do not try to get into any side companies.

They do have a few attributes Using the monitoring Feature in an intriguing manner. By Way of Example, the Get Focused! From running when chosen feature blocks programs.

They have goals and alerts that allow you to decide What when X occurs, you want to happen — and RescueTime will do this based on which it’s tracking.

I love how RescueTime does Offline Time Tracking. Rather than being required to search and put in it in 100% manually, you pick a time interval that’s unlogged and fill in the blank.

You can even customize the buttons to make logging Offline time quick and easy.

It’s a minimalist feature but that’s exactly What makes it great. It’s well-done, simple and easy.

Pricing and Plans

RescueTime offers two tiers of service: Lite (free) and Premium ($9 per month or $72 annually ). Firms or organizations that are looking to utilize RescueTime across a group of individuals pay the exact same rate.

RescueTime Lite offers Monitored his or her time before. The app monitors which websites and applications you use, and also how long you spend on or in every one of these. You may categorize every app and site you use on a Productive/Unproductive scale, and RescueTime generates a couple of basic reports showing the best way to spend your own time. Lite members can place weekly goals, such as”spend X hours each week on productive tasks and fewer than Y moments on unproductive items.” You can find a report email. For reports, you are confined to some history, nevertheless.

Paying subscribers get everything in the Lite program, Plus features and reports, including an report history. Premium also comes with alerts you can empower for when you reach goals. You can more correctly log time spent away from the computer, noting whether you were in a meeting, on a telephone call, or simply out to lunch. Furthermore, there is a Get Focused option, which permits you to block websites you set. Rescuetime Vs Timedoctor

Assessing RescueTime’s cost to that of other apps Needs an open mind as few programs do exactly what RescueTime does. Qbserve is one of the apps you can find, and it charges a level one-time fee of $40.

We could, however, look at more Apps for freelancers who typically contain tools for bills. HarvestFree at Harvest is a example. At $12 per person a month for Premium, it costs over RescueTime, but it has a very clear return on investment since it helps ensure more accurate charging. How you’ll interpret RescueTime’s reports and make better use of your time as a consequence is not as clear.

Another traditional app that’s, toggl Popular among salespeople, prices $9 per month, and in addition, it provides you definite tools for monitoring time spent on jobs with billing clients’ end aim. It has several integration options for connecting with additional invoicing services, although toggl doesn’t include its own invoicing tools.

A Couple of programs are closer to RescueTime in what they have to Provide, such as Slife, even though they tend to have fewer features even if they’re free (and Slife is).

Either way — RescueTime is a no-brainer pricing-wise. It’s free to use.

And if the attributes save you just 1 hour per month it is paid for itself even if you are simply earning US minimum wage.

RescueTime is an investment that makes sense.

App Quality

A problem with tracking programs of all types is That they have to be on. The”always on” feature can cause performance problems on laptops &amp; desktop computers. It can cause battery problems .

But in my own experience, RescueTime causes neither. It is running in my Windows PC, my Macbook Pro, along with also my Nexus 5x phone from startup. I have never tracked any functionality or battery issues to the app.

It is lightweight and well-built.

I like the fact that the cellular app doesn’t demand Heaps of permissions that are ridiculous. It demands access but does not attempt to monitor emails, contacts, location, or some of the privacy violating permissions apps request.

It’s quick to set up and syncs with an internet dashboard. It pulls in data from all sources at the same period, and crunches on the data if you’re on the Premium program or by next day to the free plan.

Reporting

What is the purpose of information if it can’t be interpreted by you Or place it to use? Rescuetime Vs Timedoctor

RescueTime’s accounts solves that problem — and in Ways is the whole purpose of working with the program.

RescueTime’s Dashboard uses bar and Pie charts to show exactly what you are (and are not) doing.

You can opt to receive reports Daily, Week or even month.

And on Top of That, you can dig deep to the Reporting with filters and overlays to find your customs out.

It is really eye-opening to determine the amount of Time that each job takes.

When I working for a marketing agency in Atlanta — The time monitored to Gchats and Instant Messages was astounding. It altered processes not only for me personally, but also my job supervisors.

Now I’m on my own with no fulltime employees — I can see the exact time I devote to jobs that matter. I can construct my entire day around those.

And Simply to reiterate Built-in into the computer software. The Dashboard is really on my default — as well as reports are pre-built.

It’s all effective, seamless and quick so that you When assessing your time are wasting time.

Integrations

Among the selling points of RescueTime is their characteristic set minimalism. They do something and they do it nicely.

That said people using their product Have applications needs. When it’s billing, project management, staff time monitoring or anything your time needs don’t cease with monitoring, measuring and categorization.

To resolve that problem, RescueTime’s applications Integrates with a assortment. They have direct integrations and an open API with software that is common.

Whether you are a freelancer attempting to integrate Time monitoring into invoicing software like FreshBooks or a job manager that needs to collate staff member’s time, RescueTime will integrate with it.

Cons of RescueTime

Like any applications though — RescueTime is Nor can it be the ideal fit for everybody. Here is some pitfalls that I’ve noticed over time. Rescuetime Vs Timedoctor

Default Get Focused! Groups

Generally, RescueTime’s categories good. Sites like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter are”Very Distracting”…for most people. And for general monitoring, RescueTime’s classes are fast &amp; easy to fix.

But RescueTime’s categories can be off with overall News, research websites and sites’ subdomains.

I can not use the Get Focused! Functionality for any Task which requires research (aka visiting a lot of different sites ).

Ironically, the time that I need smart obstructing Performance is when I am doing research for a post

There is a fine line between which is effective and When I am researching this is distracting. It would be great to use RescueTime, but the classes are not accurate enough for it to operate.

The Main problem is the Block Sites work Is unavailable in reverse (ie, add certain sites to block). I can add websites to unblock.

And when I am visiting several dozen blocked sites — Manually adding them quickly becomes time wasting.

If You’re Looking for an program that will block only Specific distracting sites — RescueTime isn’t it.

Effectiveness vs. Efficiency

RescueTime (or some time management software) Heightens the bias towards efficiency over effectiveness.

If you do the wrong thing for 18 hours Every Day, Every day with focus — you are doing the incorrect thing.

The most important factor in time management is to Work on the things .

And that’s a factor that’s 100% on you. RescueTime Can’t fix that issue.

Actually, in certain ways, RescueTime can hurt your By pushing you towards better doing over research strategy and planning Attempts.

If effectiveness is your core issue, then RescueTime is not for you. It will only make things worse.

Rather, I’d recommend reading some of these books.

Wrap-up

RescueTime continues to be an invaluable tool for me. It is not for everyone and has some attribute quirks and disadvantages.

Nevertheless, the best thing is perspective. It’s easy to think that you”work a ton” or are”not addicted to a phone” or”spend as much time composing” or are”hardly ever on Facebook.”

However, the data does not lie. And utilizing RescueTime to Get precise time data on your time can assist your own time is literally rescued by you and put your own life. Rescuetime Vs Timedoctor